Hawaii Fishing and Seafood Festival

Yesterday was the Hawaiian Fishing and Seafood Festival. There were a bunch of vendors peddling their goods and a few little activities set up. Mom, the first picture is for you. It was the Hawaii Civic Center that was showing people how do to traditional weaving with palm fronds.  Unfortunately the ribbon on the bottom left hand side of the picture was not for sale, otherwise I would have bought it for you!

The best part of the festival was really the big spread of fish they had set up to show what all of the local fish are out here.  As you can see, there is an octopus in this picture (although technically not a fish...).  I just love all of the colors! Look at that parrot fish (Uhu in Hawaiian). Sorry it is a bit blurry, there were a lot of people around and it was difficult to get a good shot.  They had set up this giant table where they have the fish auction every morning on Pier 38.  I still haven't been to the fish auction, something I will have to remedy. I was embarrassed to have to admit I had never been to the Festival before, but it's even worse I haven't been to the auction! What kind of marine biologist am I?

Here, they had set up a little table with all of the popular cuts of meat from the fish displayed on the previous table.

There was a guy selling fish prints as well. I've always wanted to get one of an Octopus, so I did! Not the giant orange one (way out of my price league) but a good one none-the-less.

There was a nice educational table set up with a guy hanging onto this lovely female day octopus.  I chatted with a few people at the festival and this guy knew who I was.  Not my face, but when I told him I study tako out at HIMB he asked if I was the one studying the he'e pali (the Hawaiian word for the rock octopus).  So, apparently people know there is someone out here studying them, and that someone is me!

It was a fun little excursion and I bought some lovely fresh fish at the fish market.  Today I am on Coconut trying to get a grip on my genetics work and I just had a very productive meeting with two of my Committee members.  Feeling a little less like a complete idiot today. We'll see how long that lasts. 

And to close out, the semi-obligatory sunset shot.  Won't be as many of these now since I will be moving back to Manoa.  But, they were nice while they lasted....